Allowing sadists to kill their babies creates incentive to produce babies for the sole purpose of killing them, which is a behavior which is long-run going to be very damaging to society.
Its illegal to torture an animal. Why wouldn’t it be illegal to torture a baby while killing him? If a sadist can get jollies out of killing with painless poison his children and keeps making them for that purpose, I can’t really see how this harms wider society if he pays for the pills and children himself.
If a sadist can get jollies out of killing with painless poison his children and keeps making them for that purpose, I can’t really see how this harms wider society if he pays for the pills and children himself.
Please rethink this. E.g. are you at all confident that this sadist wouldn’t slip and go on to adults after their 10th child? Wouldn’t you, personally, force people who practice this to wear some mandatory identification in public, so you don’t have to wonder about every creepy-looking stranger? Don’t you just have an intuition about the myriad ways that giving sadists such rights could undermine society?
E.g. are you at all confident that this sadist wouldn’t slip and go on to adults after their 10th child?
Fine make it illegal for this to be done except by experts.
Wouldn’t you, personally, force people who practice this to wear some mandatory identification in public, so you don’t have to wonder about every creepy-looking stranger?
No, why?
Don’t you just have an intuition about the myriad ways that giving sadists such rights could undermine society?
We already give sadists lots of rights to psychologically and physical abuse people when this is done with consent or when we don’t feel like being morally consistent or when there is some societal benefit to be had.
Wouldn’t you, personally, force people who practice this to wear some mandatory identification in public, so you don’t have to wonder about every creepy-looking stranger? - No, why?
For your own safety, in every regard that such people could threaten it.
We already give sadists lots of rights to psychologically and physical abuse people when this is done with consent or when we don’t feel like being morally consistent or when there is some societal benefit to be had.
Well, I’ve always thought that it’s enormously and horribly wrong of us.
For your own safety, in every regard that such people could threaten it.
I don’t think society considers that a valid reason for discrimination.
Also please remember surgeons can do nasty things to me without flinching if they wanted to, people do also occasionally have such fears since we even invoke this trope in horror movies.
Well, I’ve always thought that it’s enormously and horribly wrong of us.
I generally agree.
But on the other hand I think we should give our revealed preference some weight as well, remember we are godshatter, maybe we should just accept that perhaps we don’t care as much about other people’s suffering as we’d like to believe or say we do.
I don’t think society considers that a valid reason for discrimination.
Yes society might, if society takes into account that it loathes most people with those characteristics to begin with.
remember we are godshatter, maybe we should just accept that perhaps we don’t care as much about other people’s suffering as we’d like to believe or say we do.
Maybe if we do bother to self-modify in some direction along one of our “shard”’s vectors, it could as well be a direction we see as more virtuous? Making ourselves care as much as we’d privately want to, at least to try and see how it goes?
Making ourselves care as much as we’d privately want to, at least to try and see how it goes?
Revealed preferences are precisely what we end up doing and actually desire once we get in a certain situation. Why not work it out the other way around? How can you be sure maximum utility is going with this shard line and not the other?
Because it sounds good? To 21st century Westerners?
My current values simply DO point in the direction of rewriting parts of my utility function like I suggest, and not like you suggest.
When currently thinking in far mode about this you like the idea, but seeing it in practice might easily horrify you.
In any case when I was talking about maximising utility, I was talking about you maximising your utility. You can easily be mistaken about what does and dosen’t do that.
Uh huh, thanks. The difference is, I’m quite a bit more distrustful of your legal infanticide’s perspectives than you’re distrustful of my personal self-modification’s perspectives.
The difference is, I’m quite a bit more distrustful of your legal infanticide’s perspectives than you’re distrustful of my personal self-modification’s perspectives.
I’m not sure this is so. We should update towards each other estimates of the other’s distrustfulness. I’m literally horrified by the possibility of a happy death spiral around universal altruism.
The idea is that a woman repeatedly getting pregnant and then killing the child is putting a lot of strain on society, both in terms of resources and in terms of comfort. We allow a lot of privileges for pregnant women and new mothers, with the expectation that they’re trying to bring new people into society, something we encourage.
I’d think that that the bulk of the resource cost of a newborn is the physiological cost (and medical risks) the mother endured during pregnancy. The general societal cost seems small in comparison.
Sure, that seems true. Note that Bakkot didn’t say that the costs to everyone else outweighed the costs to the mother, merely that the costs to everyone else were also substantial.
This point is less important. The idea is that a woman repeatedly getting pregnant and then killing the child is putting a lot of strain on society, both in terms of resources and in terms of comfort. We allow a lot of privileges for pregnant women and new mothers, with the expectation that they’re trying to bring new people into society, something we encourage. If you’re killing your kid out of sadism, you’re not doing this, and society will have to adjust how all pregnant women are treated.
We already treat accidental pregnant women basically the same as those who planned their pregnancy. Clearly we should distinguish and discriminate between them rather than lump them into the “pregnant woman” category (I take a lighter tone in some of my other posts here to provoke thought, but I’m dead serious about this).
Also many people are way to stuck in their 21st century Eurocentric frame of mind to comprehend the personhood argument for infanticide properly. Let me help:
This point is less important. The idea is that a woman repeatedly getting pregnant and then aborting the child is putting a lot of strain on society, both in terms of resources and in terms of comfort. We allow a lot of privileges for pregnant women and new mothers, with the expectation that they’re trying to bring new people into society, something we encourage. If you’re killing your fetus out of sadism, you’re not doing this, and society will have to adjust how all pregnant women are treated.
Why does that seem like a reasonable thing to do? Isn’t that just an incentive to lie about motives?
Its illegal to torture an animal. Why wouldn’t it be illegal to torture a baby while killing him? If a sadist can get jollies out of killing with painless poison his children and keeps making them for that purpose, I can’t really see how this harms wider society if he pays for the pills and children himself.
Please rethink this. E.g. are you at all confident that this sadist wouldn’t slip and go on to adults after their 10th child? Wouldn’t you, personally, force people who practice this to wear some mandatory identification in public, so you don’t have to wonder about every creepy-looking stranger? Don’t you just have an intuition about the myriad ways that giving sadists such rights could undermine society?
Fine make it illegal for this to be done except by experts.
No, why?
We already give sadists lots of rights to psychologically and physical abuse people when this is done with consent or when we don’t feel like being morally consistent or when there is some societal benefit to be had.
For your own safety, in every regard that such people could threaten it.
Well, I’ve always thought that it’s enormously and horribly wrong of us.
I don’t think society considers that a valid reason for discrimination.
Also please remember surgeons can do nasty things to me without flinching if they wanted to, people do also occasionally have such fears since we even invoke this trope in horror movies.
I generally agree.
But on the other hand I think we should give our revealed preference some weight as well, remember we are godshatter, maybe we should just accept that perhaps we don’t care as much about other people’s suffering as we’d like to believe or say we do.
Yes society might, if society takes into account that it loathes most people with those characteristics to begin with.
Maybe if we do bother to self-modify in some direction along one of our “shard”’s vectors, it could as well be a direction we see as more virtuous? Making ourselves care as much as we’d privately want to, at least to try and see how it goes?
Revealed preferences are precisely what we end up doing and actually desire once we get in a certain situation. Why not work it out the other way around? How can you be sure maximum utility is going with this shard line and not the other?
Because it sounds good? To 21st century Westerners?
My current values simply DO point in the direction of rewriting parts of my utility function like I suggest, and not like you suggest.
Sure, might as well stick with this reason. I haven’t yet seen an opposing one that’s convincing to me.
When currently thinking in far mode about this you like the idea, but seeing it in practice might easily horrify you.
In any case when I was talking about maximising utility, I was talking about you maximising your utility. You can easily be mistaken about what does and dosen’t do that.
I say the same about the general shape of your modern-society-with-legalized-infanticide.
And you are right to say so!
Uh huh, thanks. The difference is, I’m quite a bit more distrustful of your legal infanticide’s perspectives than you’re distrustful of my personal self-modification’s perspectives.
I’m not sure this is so. We should update towards each other estimates of the other’s distrustfulness. I’m literally horrified by the possibility of a happy death spiral around universal altruism.
I don’t understand your reasoning for either of those dot points.
I’d think that that the bulk of the resource cost of a newborn is the physiological cost (and medical risks) the mother endured during pregnancy. The general societal cost seems small in comparison.
Sure, that seems true. Note that Bakkot didn’t say that the costs to everyone else outweighed the costs to the mother, merely that the costs to everyone else were also substantial.
We already treat accidental pregnant women basically the same as those who planned their pregnancy. Clearly we should distinguish and discriminate between them rather than lump them into the “pregnant woman” category (I take a lighter tone in some of my other posts here to provoke thought, but I’m dead serious about this).
Also many people are way to stuck in their 21st century Eurocentric frame of mind to comprehend the personhood argument for infanticide properly. Let me help: